Pages

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

We're Going To Test The Waters By Putting The Word Out There...Slowly

One of the big changes we're making with Bodacious Biscuit Love is that we want to pull in closer to home. Part of that includes providing our homemade dog treats, and eventually pup food, to families in need. Life happens and, I'm sure, most of us know what it's like to fall on hard times once in a while. On the flip side, we've had some concerns about doing this and we addressed those in a recent post published a few weeks ago.

Sadly, the biggest concern is that some people will take advantage of this. I've seen it happen many, many times. Whether it's free food tables, food pantries, pet food pantries, or anything offered to help those who are genuinely in dire need, people take advantage of it.

This is why soup kitchens and food pantries and pet food pantries empty out within a relatively short period of time.

Unfortunately, there are people who sniff out these free offerings, catch on and think, "Why pay for it when I can get it for free?" The problem with that mind frame is it takes away from the people who really, really need it. The organizations, big and small, who provide hot meals, food, and other necessities, run short. Funds dwindle down to nothing. Before you know it, there's nothing left on the tables.

We are trying to avoid this scenario. We're not a big organization. It's just the 2 of us. We run mostly out of pocket. Last week we made $5 at our only display. That covers one jar of peanut butter at Target. This week, we made $10. Although we are grateful for any and all donations, that amount just barely puts a dent in the weekly expenses.

In the weeks ahead, we're going to be looking for more display areas in our community.

There's also the expense of running the oven for 2 days straight and running the air conditioners constantly, during the summer months, for our temperature controlled biscuit room. The same holds true for space heaters in the winter. Those expenses we pay out of pocket. Always.

In addition to forking out most of the money for ingredients and supplies, we also put in a lot of time to make, bake, and package our biscuits. We bake one tray at a time and that single tray makes 1 1/2 bags of biscuits.

With that being said, the last thing we want are people scooping up bags of biscuits simply because they're free. We want to make sure our homemade biscuits are going to families who are genuinely in need.

How do we do that? Well, we haven't figured that out yet. As of now, the biscuits we've donated to people who have fallen on hard times, are all circumstances we've heard about through word of mouth. When word gets back to us, we donate biscuits and, on occasion, pet food.

For now, we're going to test the waters and slowly put the word out there in our local community. Eventually, we'd like to have a free homemade dog biscuit and pet food table once a week. I'd like to build a biscuit box. Maybe we could even use our vehicle as a Bodacious Biscuit Love Mobile to deliver to local families. And, certainly, during the holiday season, we'd like to make baskets for families in need who have pets.

If you have any experience with this, or would like to pass on some tips and advice, we're open! Please reach out to us on our Bodacious Biscuit Love Facebook page or email at bodaciousbiscuitlove@gmail.com.